How to Write a Thesis

How to Write a Thesis

Have ever thought about getting away from the daily routine and spend some time meditating and thinking about profound philosophic questions? Everybody sometimes feels the urge to escape from the annoying problems and chores. If you know this feeling, there is a great chance for you to do so. Start writing a thesis and you’ll forget about your personal life and daily issues. There will be nothing left in your life except for reading, writing, more reading, and more writing. On a serious note, though, there is a way of coping with this paper and stay in a good mood socializing with others. It is just a matter of the right time distribution and knowing what to do. Here is a collection of the vital information on this tough task.

General Tips
We just have to remind you once again to start gathering the information and choosing a topic as soon as you can. Ideally, you would start doing so somewhere between your junior and senior year. Doing so would make it possible for you to defend your thesis in spring if there are no unexpected surprises during the process.

Good planning is the key to writing a thesis fast without experiencing meltdowns and moments of frustration. At the beginning of the process, write a schedule. Indicate its major stages and estimate the amount of time you will need to get through each of them. There should be gaps with extra time after each stage as you never know what life can bring you. Remember Forrest Gump and his “life is like a box of chocolates” rule? If there is a family emergency or you catch a cold, you will need some additional time to stick to the schedule.

Topic
Choosing a topic for your thesis is completely different from choosing it for an essay or research paper. The stakes are bigger and a lot of things depend on the decision you make. The first and the most important one is your enthusiasm and engagement. Even if you are fond of a particular subject, there is a long list of topics you don’t care much about. They might be of great scientific significance but of no interest to you. Try to avoid these topics even if your professors offer you to dedicate your paper to one of them. It will be a real struggle for you.

The second important point to consider is the possible ways your thesis can help you get a good job in the future. Think about the companies where you would like to work and explore the main projects they are involved in. Is there a possibility for you to dedicate your paper to a subject that these companies would be interested in? If so, a CV of a person who has a profound knowledge in the particular subject area will look more attractive to the employers than the other ones. Check this site to find the papers that have been written on similar topics to yours and find the inspiration you need.

Style
Even though it is a scientific literary piece, the punctuation, grammar, and word choice play a significant role in grading a paper. Make sure you avoid any colloquialisms and slang. If you use a term, you need to explain it first and not to change its meaning later in the thesis. There is nothing worse than making a wrong reference or misusing a quote. Read the guidelines of your university carefully to learn what style to use and how to format the paper. Here is an example of the formatting guidelines.

There should be no self-assessment in the paper. Avoid praising your paper as the committee knows best if you did a good job or not writing it. But undermining your achievements is also not the best tactic to choose. Every paper your peers and previous generations of students have written has its own drawbacks. There is no research or experiment that went perfectly well. If there were some problems you was not expecting to face during any stage of the process, simply state them and analyze the possible reasons.

What to Avoid
There are some words you as a serious scholar should avoid using. They can cause misunderstandings and diminish the importance of your work.

  • Jokes and anecdotes. Because there should be no reason to use them in a scientific paper even if you have an excellent sense of humor.
  • Words that mean uncertainty. These are such words as “soon”, “seemingly”, “something like”, “probably”, “few”, etc. Starting from the hypothesis of your paper, there should be no vague sentences in the paper. Be as precise as you can.
  • He/she, her/his. You can get the committee confused with these words. It is better to use plural when possible. Try to minimize the usage of “I” and “my” as well. Instead of writing “In this section, I will explain…” simply write “The section XX explains (describes) …” Oh, and using the second person pronoun is also a bad idea. Never write “You are about to find out…” in your thesis.